Promise Me You Won't Panic

It’s graduation season, and it has me thinking about how confused I felt when I graduated.

I spent most of my time in college (four different schools, about as many majors, and $85K in student loans) trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I couldn't find a single thing I wanted to do for a few months, let alone for the rest of my life. I spent a lot of that time ashamed and embarrassed, woefully aware of how flaky I looked in a sea of peers who “knew” what they wanted. As a kid who spent most of my formative years in “gifted” or “honors,” the people I went to school with were walking their goals down and had jobs upon graduation.

I, on the other hand, had finessed my way into an internship just before graduating, in one of the marketing departments at Unilever. It was sexy to say, “I’m headed to New York for a summer internship on the global marketing team for Calvin Klein’s classic brand fragrances.” But the experience? Mostly boring. Everything outside of the actual job was better than the job itself.

When I graduated, I thought maybe I’d find my way back to New York. I reached out to the magazine that sponsored me for the internship, and to the company I worked for. It was almost as if I should have known there would never be a job offered to me. It read like a DEI box check before DEI existed. I was offered exposure. That’s it.

And so I went through the motions, graduated, and moved back home to my mother’s house.

This is where I give the advice I wish someone had given me.

This is going to matter more than you know. Finishing something teaches you how to continue, even when things are unclear. And a lot of being an adult is unclear. Damn near all of it.

It is so very early in your life. I swear. I’m going to beg you to enjoy this season before you fill it with stuff and responsibility. This is probably the lightest you’ll ever be, so float. Weave in and OUT of everything.

You won’t want to seem flaky, so you’ll try to prove you can stick out something you don’t love. Hear me clearly: don’t. Go. More than anything, this is the time to get crystal clear about what you don’t want.

Weave in and out, knowing there will probably be some regrets. That’s the price of learning. You’ll look back and think, “I probably should have hung there longer.” That’s okay. None of us gets to live a life where we don’t regret something.

Force yourself to meet as many people as you can who are different from you. People with different family setups, who went to different types of schools, people you wouldn’t necessarily hang out with, but maybe you can sit and have a cup of matcha with (that’s what the young people drink, right? ha!).

Variety in who you know expands your imagination for your own life. You start realizing there isn’t just one way to build a career, relationship, family, friendship, or future. Even if you have deep admiration for your parents’ way, it is still A way. It is not THE way.

It also gets you further than staying in your circle ever will. The more people you understand, the less you take personally.

Ask everyone who looks like someone you’d want to hang out with what they do. College points you toward maybe a dozen careers. There are thousands, and the best ones nobody's named for you yet. My mind is blown by what people are doing and making a good living at, things that never would have crossed my mind because I’d never heard of them.

And don’t be afraid to tell people you’re still looking for work. So many people know about opportunities inside their companies, and they won’t consider you if they don’t know you’re looking.

Take a job that will expose you to the kind of people you want to learn from. It likely won’t be the highest paid or the most impressive. Work at the gallery. Work the front desk at the wellness studio. Assist the photographer. Take the restaurant job in the neighborhood where interesting people gather. Become the junior person in the room where people are building things you admire.

That’s how you learn how people think, how opportunities happen, how relationships get built, how creative lives are sustained, how money moves, how confident people communicate, how problems get solved.

Instead of asking someone to be your mentor, become a youthful mentor to them. Find someone you admire and fill them in on the apps, the connections, the things young people are doing. Most successful people don’t fully have their ear to the street. Consider it an exchange, but treat it as something you’re doing for them. You’ll show up as less of an empty vessel.

The first job that eventually thrust me into my career was one I created for myself.

I was watching TV and saw a company come on during a Grammy segment. I went to their website, didn’t see any openings, and if I’m being honest, didn’t even know what I would have done for them. I called anyway and asked for an interview. I asked to come talk about where I might fit, and I offered to work for free. I was already living at home, so the plan was to do it part-time and work something that paid on the side.

After a very short time working for free, they offered me a paid part-time job. A new employee noticed the way I worked and couldn’t believe I didn’t have a full-time job somewhere better. So she started sending me an underground job list, the “UTA Job List,” a then-secret list of entry-level jobs in the coveted entertainment industry. I got the first one I went after. From that job, I was hired away by a client. And eventually I quit, having learned (just) enough to strike out on my own.

So here’s the part I most want you to hear. The kid with four schools, four majors, and $85K in loans, the one who looked flaky in a sea of people who had it figured out, is the one who built a career out of a cold call and the audacity to ask. What you’re ashamed of right now is the thing that’s going to work. You just can’t see it yet.

So please don’t panic. Float. Go.

Whether you just graduated or just feel like you're starting over, this is the kind of work we do inside Bring Your Work. I run a live coaching group every month. If you're ready to get specific about what you actually want, come join us. [link]